


Spring Showers

by KidaCakes



Category: Rick and Morty
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alcohol, Aliens, Angst, Angst and Feels, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, I'm Bad At Tagging, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M, Photos, dark secret revealed, fish-slug alien mobsters, mid-spring, unable to cope, wrecked ship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-08
Updated: 2016-07-08
Packaged: 2018-07-22 06:03:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,366
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7422796
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KidaCakes/pseuds/KidaCakes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They say a picture is worth a thousand words. How many words did four pictures amount to? To Morty, they were worth five words. Five horrible, gut-wrenching, world changing words.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Spring Showers

**Author's Note:**

> First Rick and Morty fic without a crossover, oh yea. This was inspired by a prompt. 
> 
> Prompt: The story starts on a wrecked ship. The story takes place in mid-spring. During the story, a character finds out a dark secret.
> 
> Also, working on a continuation/follow-up story for it because of the wonderful The-Clairvoyant-Rick. Just, ugh, a wonderful person and writer and helped expand on this so I just need to get it down in clear, concise words. And stuff.

It was a warm, spring day. There were no clouds in the sky and the sun was beating down on the duo; at least there was a breeze. The forecast didn't call for rain, which they were thankful for. Working on the ship would have sucked in the rain and hauling it into the garage would've been a pain. It was better to get the repairs done on the wrecked ship where it was and just move it when it was fixed.

The ship had been damage from a plasma laser, taking out part of the right hull and nearly making them collide with an asteroid. It was last minute and dumb luck that the portal gun had enough charge to make one last portal to get them home. They had skidded across the asphalt of the road until the ship came to a screeching halt in their driveway. They had looked at each other for a moment, dumbfounded that they escaped and even made it to the right house, in the driveway no less. Rick let out a whoop of laughter, congratulating himself and Morty (mostly himself) on another successful adventure. Morty could only chuckle in his nervous, awkward way as he processed that they were, indeed alive and home. 

They barely escaped with their lives and it was all thanks to Rick’s greed. He was selling some sort of illegal, deadly device to a group of shady alien mobsters. They looked like fish-slug hybrids in pinstripe suits. Nothing new there except these were new clients. Yet Rick wanted more than just the money. He wanted to keep the device as well. Again, nothing new. However, the mobsters seemed to be expecting some dirty dealings to go down and were prepared when Rick tried to double cross them.

Lasers and yelling followed them as they ran back to the ship, Rick shouting and shooting wildly behind them at the advancing group. All Morty wanted to do was survive and be relatively unscathed, make it home in one piece and just watch Ball Fondlers. They made it to the ship; panting hard, sides burning, adrenaline coursing through their veins. It wasn't until they were space-borne that the real problems began. So many ships converged on them, no holds bar shooting, almost corralling them into a nearby asteroid belt. Yet, here they were, alive and fixing the ship. Rick even got to keep his device and the money. An extremely successful adventure (“business deal”) in their books.

Rick was welding some metal to the hole in the hull, having spent a few hours cleaning it up and taking out the damaged parts. He had shed his grimy lab coat and cyan shit, now in only his wife beater and brown slacks. Since Rick didn't need him for the moment, he figured he would clean the inside. There were so many bottles and cans-- with all the trash you couldn't even see the floor. It'd be a nice gesture, even if Rick wouldn't appreciate it verbally. 

Morty began by filling up two huge trash bags of just various alcohol containers. One day, Morty would have to talk to Rick about his drinking problem. Maybe he could convince him to stop, or at least cut down. Maybe Rick would do it for Morty. He didn't put much stock in that happening but he could hope, at least a little.

It took the better part of an hour cleaning out the ship and even vacuuming the floor. He finally could get started on the more in-depth cleaning, all the nooks and crannies that weren't filled or stuffed with alcoholic beverage containers. It looked like the ship hadn't gotten a good cleaning _once_ since Rick built it. He worked on Rick's side, fishing out random and/or disgusting things from under his seat and between the cushions. Jeez, Rick could be such a slob. Morty shuffled over to his side, not nearly as bad. Some snack bags under the seat or some wrappers. Nothing too horrible. Most of the crud in between his cushions were crumbs, lint, some gum wrappers-- Oh, what is that?

His fingers plucked a bent, rectangular piece of paper from the cushions. He flattened it out on the seat, bending it the opposite way so that it wouldn't fold back over. It was one of those photo booth picture things. The ones that had four little squares so you can take four different pictures. He'd never done one himself, having no friends to take pictures with and Rick wasn't one f--

It was him and Rick in the photos. Each one of them had Rick and Morty in them. At the top, scrawled in alien bubble characters, was most likely the name of the place where the photos were taken. It was colorful and inviting, probably some alien amusement park or something, but left Morty feeling cold despite the warm weather. The first square, little picture was of Rick looking grumpy, like he couldn't believe he was doing something so stupid, and Morty just smiling awkwardly, his hand raised to wave at the camera. The second one had Rick taking a swing from his flask and Morty trying to smile wider but looking forced and a bit sad. The third photo was a bit blurry since it seemed they were moving when the camera took the picture. Rick was leaning forward, arm slung around Morty’s shoulders, a wide grin stretched across his face that was parted slightly. He was laughing and it looked pretty genuine. Morty, for his part, was trying to keep them both from toppling over. But he was smiling, looking like he was about to laugh, his eyes squinting in mirth. It's the most relaxed and at eased picture of himself he'd ever seen. Probably the happiest too.

The fourth picture was warped; the image distorted in a bubbling way, suggesting a liquid hard ruined it, under some flaky rust colored mess. He could just make out that Rick's face was really close to his, turned towards Morty’s but his eyes facing the camera, the whites were a brownish red that bubbled up from the rest of the image. Morty's teeth were showing through a smile but they were no longer white but stained with dried blood, a grisly image of happiness staring back at him. He never took these pictures with Rick. Not once had they ever gone _near_ a photo booth or to the alien place that had it’s name on the top of the photostrip. But here they were, staring back at Morty, even the ones that we warped and twisted looking stared at him through the film of gore.

Morty ended up falling out of the ship, landing on his rear, still clutching the strip of macabre photos in a trembling hand. He couldn't even feel when he landed, everything going numb. His heart felt like it was beating so fast it would explode and felt like it was going so slow it would stop at the same time. It was with an effort that he heard Rick calling his name, his gaze finally focusing on his grandfather kneeling in front of him, looking concerned and a bit distressed. He couldn't even feel the hands on his forearms.

“I-I-I-I’m not y-y-your first Morty…” He was detachedly surprised that he could talk. He kept the little photostrip clutched in his hand, holding onto it like it was a lifeline when, in reality, it was an anchor making him sink fast.

He couldn't keep his head up, feeling to heavy to bother staying upright another second longer, everything was going numb and darkening around him. He saw Rick's face flash by with a look of-- what? Shame? Regret? Hurt?-- something he couldn't process, his mind going numb the same as his body. He felt like he was falling, drifting down into himself as his head laid back. The light of the world getting smaller and smaller until they were just pinprick dots. Then, darkness.

His last thought before the darkness consumed him was how the forecast lied. Even though there were no clouds, he could feel the rain sliding down his face.


End file.
